


Five people Clint and Natasha (but mostly Clint) lied to about how they met, and the one person they told the truth to

by prettyasadiagram



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 22:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyasadiagram/pseuds/prettyasadiagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is a filthy liar and Natasha isn't any better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five people Clint and Natasha (but mostly Clint) lied to about how they met, and the one person they told the truth to

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how I ended up writing het, since my head canon for them involves more bromance and less sexytimes, but whatever.
> 
> Thanks to thatdamneddame for the slapdash beta and pointing out that Darcy isn't 118 years old.

1: Tony

Everyone knows that Clint and Natasha knew each other before the Avengers; it’s not exactly a secret. They gravitate toward each other after missions, seeking familiarity as the two only human members of the team, the only ones who aren’t super-soldiers or giant green rage-monsters.

Tony asks how they met while they hang around after a SHIELD meeting, Fury glaring from the front of the room, like any fun or personal questions are not allowed on government property.

Clint looks at Natasha, weighing the consequences of lying through his teeth with actually telling the truth. It really all depends on if she plays along; she’s got a wicked sense of humor, but usually likes to watch him squirm more than pull the wool over others.

He goes for it. “Lithuanian sex club.” Clint smiles fondly, while keeping a wary eye on Fury and Natasha. “It was dark and--”

Natasha interrupts him, baring her teeth. “He tried to kill me.”

Clint turns to gape at her. Oh, she’s good. He did not expect that.

“Fine, you keep your secrets. It’ll come out eventually.” Tony scoffs and stalks off, probably to go bother Steve, who at least won’t lie straight to his face.

 

 

2: Bruce

Bruce brings it up once, in the early days of the Avengers Initiative, when everyone is so awkward around each other and every question is a loaded gun waiting to go off, when Tony and Steve can’t be in the same room without a fight, when Thor has no concept of waiting and swings Mjölnir into walls.

So when Clint finds himself alone in the lab with Bruce, and Bruce asks, “how’d you and Natasha meet,” bringing to mind every awkward conversation he’s ever had with a junior agent, he does what he did in every conversation previously: he lies.

“Kabul. She shot me in the thigh and stole my wallet.”

Bruce looks up from his microscope. “Oh, um-- Sorry?”

Clint just shakes his head.

 

 

3: Darcy

It doesn’t come up again until they’re at some new “hip” bar that Tony may or may not have purchased for the occasion--the occasion being “Team Bonding” night, as demanded by Tony-- and someone, probably Darcy, calls out for a drinking game, the end goal being to get Steve drunk. Steve protests, citing from previous experience that he cannot get drunk, that this can only end badly, but Thor shakes his fist in the air and yells, “Barmaid, more beer for my brethren!”

Despite the dark look from their waitress, no one gets beer spilled on them until Darcy starts the game off with, “I’m actually an English major, PoliSci just sounded cooler for the internship; I have 4 older brothers who are all Marines; and my grandmother bought me purple vibrator for my 18th birthday, because no granddaughter of hers was going to go off to college depending on a man for orgasms,” and Bruce spits his beer across the table at the last one.

(Everyone except Tony guesses that she’s lying about the vibrator. Tony just shrugs, “Background checks. Also, Grandma’s got a facebook.”)

By the time they get to Clint, Tony’s been right more often than not, Darcy is leaning heavily on Steve’s shoulder, and Thor is pretty much only looking down Jane’s shirt.

Darcy stares pointedly at Clint, “Hey--how’d you, I mean--you and Natasha? How’d that happen?”

“Well, when a man and a woman like each other--”

“N, no--wait, what? I mean, I can see that. but I meant was how’d you meet? Not, how’d you end up boning?”

“Well, when a man and a woman like each other...”

Bruce throws a balled up napkin at Clint and Darcy cheers.

“Fine, fine. Two truths and a lie: She was my contact in Russia, we met up at a 24-hour diner and she stuck me with the check; we were part of the same SHIELD stitch-and-bitch league; or, CraigsList through Missed Connections.”

They never get to hear the answer, because Thor finally succumbs to the lure of Jane’s V-neck shirt and accidentally knocks the table over as he picks her up--presumably to carry her off and ravish her. Everyone scrambles to avoid the resulting splash of alcohol.

Natasha leans into Clint’s side, “Those were all lies, Barton.”

“Hey, you did stick me with the check that one time, don’t think I’ve forgotten about that.”

 

 

4: Thor

On his and Jane’s second anniversary, Thor recounts the tale of how he met his perfect Jane in the vast deserts of that strange place called “New Mexico” as he and Clint walk through the halls of SHIELD. 

“And even though Darcy felled me with lightning, the love and warmth in my precious Jane’s eyes soothed all my wounds and gave me strength.” Thor claps Clint on the back, “Now you, my friend. Tell me your story!”

Clint rubs his shoulder, grimacing; Thor forgets that mere mortals bruise. “Which story? How I came to SHIELD? How my aim got to be so good? Why my ass looks amazing in this outfit?”

“Do not be coy, Clinton. Tell me how you and the fair lady Natasha found each other!”

And well, Clint--he just can’t resist, because he knows Natasha is lurking somewhere, can feel it in the way he can’t quite settle into stride at Thor’s side, just that little bit off balance. So he starts his story big, pretty sure that the moment Natasha gets what he’s doing, she’s either going to play along or punch him in the solar plexus, so he better make the most of the time he’s got.

He tells Thor about their time at the academy together, when everyone was convinced that Natasha ate junior agents for breakfast and picked the bones out of her teeth with her stiletto heels, they called her the shrew, but when she asked him out he agreed, because she seemed interesting and he was bored, but he never intended it to become a thing, but then she was so alive and vicious and wouldn’t let him pull his punches when they sparred, and he just couldn’t help himself.

Clint goes on about how through a twisted tale of misunderstandings and unexpected revelations, he found out about this dare, that Natasha only ever asked him out because he was the new guy that everyone thought was too big for his britches because he talked back and always hit his target, and everyone was pretty sure Natasha would gleefully take him down a peg, but the look in her eyes when he confronted her about it was heartbreaking, for a second, before it was back to cold and distanced and vengeful.

“Playing with a man’s heart; I did not expect that from her.” Thor shakes his head despondently, even his flowing locks look sad for Clint.

“You didn’t? I don’t know, man, ‘tasha’s pretty crafty.”

But Clint goes on, rambles about Natasha embarrassing herself for him in the cafeteria by standing on a table and publicly apologizing, how he of course forgave her and--

“That’s almost right, but I think it went a little differently--” Natasha rounds the corner, and yes; she’s playing along. Sort of. “As I remember, it was you standing on a table, reciting terrible poetry. Poetry you had written yourself, if I’m not mistaken? I believe there was a rhyme scheme?”

Thor turns to stare at Clint, mouth gaping, aghast that he has been so egregiously lied to. “I am aghast that you would so egregiously lie to me, your brethren, when I poured my heart out to you about my Jane. Why would you hide this?”

As Clint sets up some lame excuse about being embarrassed about having feelings or something, Natasha is standing behind Thor, and the giant grin on her face is akin to someone legitimately rolling on the floor laughing.

 

(Later, when Thor is telling Jane his discovery of the relationship between Clint and Natasha, Darcy looks up and says, “Ugh, Thor? I’m pretty sure that’s a rom-com plot. I’ve seen that movie. I own that movie.”

Thor is once again outraged that he had been egregiously lied to.)

 

 

5: An Interviewer

Fury makes them give a group interview, something about damage control and Central Park and public opinion; Clint doesn’t really listen, it’s not like they’re going to ask him questions. It’ll be Tony and Steve fielding most of them, with Thor getting the customary, “So what’s it like being a god?”

Everything goes per usual until the end, when the intrepid reporter, feeling brave, turns to Natasha and Clint and asks, “So out of the team, the two of you are the only ones with previous government ties and field experience. Were you acquainted before the Avengers Initiative, or was this team your first encounter with each other?”

Clint grins at Natasha, “I’ll let you handle this one. You tell the story so much better,” and then looks at the reporter, “She’s just so good with details.”

Natasha doesn’t smile, “I’m sorry--that information is classified.”

The reporter sits back with a sigh of exasperation, and then the interview is over.

 

And the only time they told the truth:

1: Steve

Natasha nudges Clint and cuts her eyes to where Steve is sitting morosely at the bar, swirling his drink around desolately.

“What? What do you want me to do? Send Tony--he totally wants in Cap’s pants, it’s perfect.”

She glares. “I will punch you in the face. Go.”

Clint sighs and throws back his drink. Fine.

He settles himself next to Steve at the bar and orders another whiskey double. Steve says nothing, doesn't even look at him, so Clint starts to talk. “Let me tell you a story. There once was this guy, who was pretty decent with a bow and arrow, and never knew when to shut up. And there was this lady with the most beautiful red hair and a vicious smile, who didn’t need a gun to knock you flat on your ass, but she had a gun, and guns beat bows nine times out of ten.

“Now they were both stationed in Lithuania, had different and highly-classified objectives, but when you come across an agent, you can’t just let them walk away, can’t trust that your cover isn’t blown. So there’s this awkward stand-off in a bar, as she steps on his foot with her stilettos, pinning him unless he wants to make a very public scene in a place where men don’t take kindly to mistreating a lady, but he’s got a small butterfly knife tucked against her ribs, waiting for her to make a move, so it’s not a totally unfair fight.

“So he leans in and says, ‘I remember you from Russia,’ hoping that maybe she has fond memories of that night. And she does, if the small smile and lessening of pressure on his foot is anything to judge by. ‘I remember I shot you and you screamed like a girl.’

“He makes some quip back, but it doesn’t really matter because at this point, they both know that neither of them is ratting the other out. As far as they’re concerned, this is like a drink between old friends, warring agencies be damned. And so they have a drink, and she leaves, and he thinks everything is fine, until it turns out she’s stolen his wallet and left him with the check in a bar that doesn’t look kindly on IOUs--”

Steve interrupts. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“What? No, not really, that’s not my job. But now you know something the team doesn’t, so let that keep you warm while Tony makes an ass out of himself.” With that said, Clint finishes his drink and sketches a sloppy salute before walking back to Natasha.

 

(“What story did you tell this time?”

“The truth.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Really? Not that we met in the south of France on a nude beach?”

“Nah, maybe next time, it’s always good to have backups. I’ll even let you tell it.”

She shakes her head and just orders them another round.)

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not repost this work in its entirety or share this work on third-party websites such as Goodreads.


End file.
